Blind obsession sees Woodward transform his hearts of oak

IF YOU really wanted to carp, you could say that the All Blacks brought a weakened team to Twickenham last Saturday.

You might also make a meal of the way England had to hang on at the end against a New Zealand comeback which devoured all but the last three points of their lead.

Add those quibbles together and you could argue that even though England have now beaten all the heavy hitters in both southern and northern hemispheres under Clive Woodward's management, they are unlikely to do so again come next year and the rugby World Cup Down Under.

You would also miss the point.

England's achievement was not merely the overcoming of any All Blacks XV for the first time in nine years and only the fifth time in history. It was a triumph of the spirit which made this country great.

Imperfect this victory may have been.

Perfectly timed it most certainly was.

What more appropriate moment could there be for an emphatic statement of sheer grit and characteristic determination than the weekend on which we salute the fallen heroes of war?

To make the point all the more emphatic, Woodward's men stood their ground even as England's cricketers were being routed in Australia.

They have also drawn a clear line in the sand of national pride in the very year in which England's other footballers went out of their World Cup - in Japan of all places - without a fight.

No wilting roses, here. No faint-hearts, either. Not under this English manager.

Woodward's successes are many. They include transforming English rugby's social animals into some of the fittest athletes on the planet, modernising their tactics and revolutionising their training techniques.

Most vitally, he has imbued them now with the paranoia about defeat which has been the bedrock of the southern hemisphere's domination of this game.

If he is crazy - as some who flinch from his fanaticism say he is - then his is a glorious obsession. It is also one shared by his players.

Without it, Jonny Wilkinson may never have overcome his All Blacks complex and grown into the all-kicking, allpassing, try-scoring man of this particular match.

Without it, Ben Cohen might not have matured from the showboating scorer of exaggerated tries like the one on Saturday into the defiant last line of defence down there in the corner with the light fading and England under siege.

Without it, Jonah Lomu's return to power would have overwhelmed England once again.

Winning is as much about attitude as it is about talent and intelligence, witness the All Blacks and the Aussies at whichever sport they take the field.

Woodward is still scouring the shires for the mercurial centre who might add the final touch of World Cup-winning class to this winter's England machine.

Yet, even while that search goes on, his team are putting to shame England's ashen, outplayed cricketers and craven, overpaid footballers.

Whether or not they are quite good enough to conquer the world next autumn, these troops under this commander will take some beating.

They have proved as much by giving their own expression to the spirit of remembrance weekend.

No surrender.

GAMING authorities in America are withholdng payment of $3million to the only punter who backed all six winners at the Breeders Cup, the scene of such disappointment for Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson, his Irish racing connections and his wonder horse Rock of Gibraltar.

With his wager of just $12 - all six $2 winning tickets sold that day - computer service businessman Derrick Davis has raised suspicions that the databases at Chicago's Arlington Park may have been hacked into after the day's racing had begun.

There will be no pay-out until investigations are completed.

Most intriguingly for Sir Alex, is solid information that the bet against his horse in the Breeders' Cup Mile was not changed.

Now call me naive but how could anyone possibly have been so sure in advance that Rock of Gibraltar - the heavily supported favourite and visibly the fastest thoroughbred in the field - was going to come up a shade short?

And even though jockey Mickey Kinane was blamed for applying the accelerator too late, will we ever really know for certain why Sir Alex's Rock finished second?

Funny old game, racing.

Lewis drives hard bargain with King over TV deal

WITH boxing running desperately low on major box-office attractions, what price the world heavyweight title?

According to Don King, he bought one portion of the championship from Lennox Lewis for 'a million dollars and a Range Rover'.

This, apparently, is the fee which the Englishman, who is universally regarded as the legitimate wearer of the crown, is receiving for being King's ringside TV analyst in Atlantic City on December 14, when Evander Holyfield and Chris Byrd contest the IBF title he has conveniently vacated.

The deal also requires Lewis to be part of King's commentary team in Las Vegas on March 1, when Roy Jones Jr challenges John Ruiz for the the WBA belt.

Money for old ropes? Maybe.

Not that Vitaliy Klitschko, pencilled in to fight Lewis one week later, nor Mike Tyson threaten to make extreme demands on the British defender of the WBC title.

Assuming he then polishes off Vitaliy's younger brother Wladimir, the WBC's official No.1 challenger, Lewis will need that Range Rover to carry away all his loot.

Old rogue he may be, but without King's creative promoting, big-time prize-fighting would be at a virtual standstill.

As for Lewis, by using the WBA and IBF segments of his onceundisputed championship as sacrificial pawns he has opened up the eventual prospect of another unification match between him and whichever of the two winners of Holyfield-Byrd and Ruiz- Jones goes on to beat the other.

Had Lewis been allowed to drift off into retirement, the supreme championship would hardly have been worth a can of beans.

While we are on the subject of King, he spent time last week with both George W Bush and Bill Clinton. In political terms, that really would have been a heavyweight fight. Perhaps it was with that in mind that King told Bush: 'You need a promoter.' What price the U.S. presidency?

Bush is said to have replied: 'No, Don, not even you can afford that.'